We thought at first that the launch of the Surface Book showed Microsoft's lack of confidence in the Surface Pro, which it has long described as the perfect laptop replacement, but the exuberant, albeit slightly frightening, Panos Panay soon proved otherwise.

He made it clear that the Surface Book has its own market. It's not going after those looking for a kickstand-equipped tablet-type-thing, it's after those with their sights set on the most premium, powerful Windows device available, just as Google's Chromebook Pixel does in the Chrome OS market.

And the best thing about the Surface Book? As well as offering desktop-class performance thanks to its Skylake internals and dedicated Nvidia GPU, a 12-hour battery life and a full version of Windows 10 Pro, the display can be removed.

Microsoft made jaws drop when it revealed that the Surface Book's 13.5in display, which has a 3,000x2,000 resolution, can be detached, something which sees the firm imagining a hybrid device like none seen before. Microsoft hasn't just made a tablet with a detachable keyboard, it's designed a whole new hinge and attachment mechanism, something its long list of OEM partners have so far failed to do.
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the Surface Book has its own market. It's not going after those looking for a kickstand-equipped tablet-type-thing, it's after those with their sights set on the most premium, powerful Windows device available.

Taken to the next level, the powerful workstation class devices. The VAIO Z includes a 45W Quad Core CPU and Discrete GPU. Lenovo, HP, Dell and others make powerful Workstation class laptops and Gaming laptops. By now everyone has to be eagerly awaiting what Microsoft can do to innovate and invigorate at the next level of portable computing. They have already shown some innovation in cooling technology and more will be needed to tame the power of the Workstation class laptop but I'm sure they can do it.

One area that needs tightening up is the drivers. They need to really up their game in this area which has so far been disappointingly weak.

It's an interesting concept. I think the struggle is the size and weight required to also be a portable laptop and tablet mean that we are some way behind putting something like a quad core i7 and 980m in a convertible. The problem becomes regular users believing that it should look like a regular laptop. I guarantee that there will be reviewers putting the Surface Book down because it isn't as thin or light as a MacBook. Despite the fact that the tech involved could hardly be fitted into a smaller footprint. I would love to one day replace my gaming rig with a Surface. I think we may be a few years off.

It's an interesting concept. I think the struggle is the size and weight required to also be a portable laptop and tablet mean that we are some way behind putting something like a quad core i7 and 980m in a convertible. The problem becomes regular users believing that it should look like a regular laptop. I guarantee that there will be reviewers putting the Surface Book down because it isn't as thin or light as a MacBook. Despite the fact that the tech involved could hardly be fitted into a smaller footprint. I would love to one day replace my gaming rig with a Surface. I think we may be a few years off.